Looking at: Far Cry 4

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The Late, Great, Far Cry

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One new addition is Far Cry 4's drop-in, drop-out co-op. There's also Honey Badgers. 

I mentioned in my look at the Far Cry series that Far Cry 3 was, and still is, one of my favorite shooters of all time, right up there with Doom 2 and COD: Modern Warfare. It's an incredibly enjoyable game with a huge open world, tonnes of activities to keep you busy, a well controlled upgrade system, and one of the more interesting stories in recent shooters. I've played FC3 several times now and I still enjoy every moment of it.

I also mentioned in that article how I was afraid for the Far Cry series. Ubisoft has had a recent trend of massacring it's PR, and it's shoddy handling of the once great Assassin's Creed franchise shows what can happen when they attempt to annualized a series. Far Cry 4 is, technically, the third Far Cry game in as many years, with FC3 in 2012, Blood Dragon and 2013, and now FC4 earlier this year. Thankfully Ubisoft haven't announced a new Far Cry game yet, but we'll wait and see. As for FC4? It doesn't ruin the franchise, but the seeds are certainly planted.

The Familiar

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Hunting remains largely the same, but beware enemy hunters that turn the wild life against you.

Anyone who played FC3 will be instantly familiar with FC4, mostly because they're essentially the same game. It's still an open world shooter with tonnes of activities to keep you busy, a well controlled upgrade system, and one of the more recent villains in recent history. That last one has changed a bit, and I'll explain later. There's really not much different then FC3, and this is one of the most annoying things about FC4. It's all the same,

I'd like to state right now that I didn't not hate Far Cry 4. That is to say, I sort of liked it. But I mostly liked it because, at it's best, it was just a newer, slightly better version of Far Cry 3. When Far Cry 4 was really, really good, it's because it was just apeing the things Far Cry 3 did really, really good. It was incredibly fun to unleash a wild animal on a group of unsuspecting enemies, just like it was in Far Cry 3. It was thrilling to sneak through a camp and systematically take down targets one by one, just like it was in Far Cry 3. It was a blast hunting down that dangerous animal to complete the upgrade I'd been working so hard on, just like -you get the point.

The New

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Elephants can be ridden into battle, with hilarious results.

That isn't to say Far Cry 4 is devoid of new additions. For one, it's hero, Ajay Ghale, is decidedly better at being a super soldier then Jason Brody was. This time around you start with the ability to slide, use sidearms while zip-lining, and cook grenades before throwing. He also has several new abilites that put him ahead of Brody, like the ability to fire sidearms while driving, and moving corpses out of sight. These two come pre-loaded, and don't require unlocking, which is for the best since they're both incredibly useful throughout the game.

Unlockable skills this time around are arraigned into only two trees: the Elephant, focusing on offense and syringe mixing; and the Tiger, focusing on stealth and firearms usage. Rather then unlocking once a level, you now save up unlock points and gain skills as you wish, with higher end skills costing more points. It's a nice change up, and there are enough useful skills peppered through that it's worth it. Skill acquiring has also been slightly re-worked, and I rarely found myself waiting around with unspent skill points like in FC3.

FC4 uses most of the same guns as FC3, to little surprise, but does boast a few new additions. This time around there's a designated side-arm slot specifically for one-handed weapons. While this seems annoying at first, it's purpose makes sense, especially given the ability to shoot while driving, and you quickly get used to it. Besides, it's really useful after unlocking the one-handed grenade launcher, a weapon so hilarious to use I saw little reason to ever be apart from it. There's other great new weapons, like the Autocross rapid fire silent crossbow, the .700nitro double barreled hunting rifle, or the LK-1018 lock-on rocket launcher.

 Where the weapon selection really shines is FC4's host of signature weapons. All of them require certain conditions be met, and earning a signature weapon is a great reward. There's the silent variation of the AK47, a one-handed flip-cocked version of the shotgun, a fully automatic pistol with an insane firerate, or a 400-round machine gun that never gives up. All of these are great, and working towards unlocking them is a good way to experience the world of Kyrat.

Kyrat, Land of 1000 Mountains

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Kyrat is a pleasent change from the lush Rook Islands.

An idiot once said of Far Cry 3 "Like Skyrim with guns" and while that ridiculously stupid statement meant nothing for FC3, it seems rather apt for FC4, at least as far as Kyrat is concerned. Rather then FC3's lush jungle island, Kyrat is located in the shadow of the Himalayan mountains, is a decided...far cry from Rook Islands. Kyrat is a cold, and desolate place, evoking obvious imagery of Nepal and Mongolia. There are temples scattered around, and holy sites from the local religion. It's a spiritual place, one that begs to be explored.

That is, until you try to actually explore it. Rook Islands was mostly open, and used hills sporadically to break up the terrain. Kyrat is mountainous, and allows only the occasional open field or body of water. While this is a great change, it makes traversing a real pain. I spent more time trying to figure out how to get to my destination, than actually going there. Even with the addition of a grappling hook it's annoying, since the hook is contextual as hell. Thief had the ability to deploy and use ropes at will, and that was released in 1998. Blessedly, there's still the ability to fast-travel to certain sites, and the wingsuit can be purchased only a few hours in rather then halfway through, but traversing Kyrat remains one of the more annoying parts of FC4.

The spiritual idiot, and his shrieking partner

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Like Red Dead Redemption, FC4 features dynamic events to keep the world alive.

Speaking of annoying, let's talk about FC4's plot and characters. They're terrible. Ubisoft continues to not be able to write protagonists, as Ajay Ghale's motivations are even worse then Jason Brody. As Ghale, you are sent back to Kyrat, you're homeland, to spread your mother's ashes as her final wish. Your mother was part of The Golden Path, a group of rebels attempting to overthrow the dictator. Ghale is kidnapped, and finds himself rescued by The Golden Path, then gang-pressed into becoming a super hero for them.

Here's the thing, Ghale has no reason to get involved, beyond "It's my parent's fight, so now it's my fight". It's not like he's searching for his lost parents. His father is dead, and he knew his mother his whole life, so that's not the reason. The Golden Path rescues him, then tells him if he wants to fulfill his mother's wish he'll need to fight. Except that he doesn't, because he's just a tourist, and the military has no problem with him.

SPOILER WARNING: SKIP TO THE NEXT PARAGRAPH
It's made even stupider by the "secret ending". At the beginning of the game, you're told to wait while the villian makes a phone call. If you actually wait, he comes back, you spread your mother's ashes, and you go home. The entire conflict is pointless, and Ghale has no reason to fight.

Worse then the story are it's characters. The Golden Path is led by Sabal and Amita, two people so forgettable I had to look their names up on the wiki. Sabal is a backwards thinking patriot that wants to return Kyrat to it's spiritual roots, and Amita is a business minded leader that oozes that old "I'm a woman in a man's world, so I must fight" trope so much it's annoying. Neither of these two are interesting at all, and having to choose which of them to support is like choosing math class or geography, they both suck.

Then there's the supporting cast. Longinus, the biblical minded arms dealer is probably the most interesting, just because his performance is so over the top it becomes magical. Bhadra, Amita's daughter(?) who's some sort of goddess reincarnated that's never given a back story. Willis Huntly returns for a short while to be a complete asshole American sterotype. Finally there's Yogi and Reggi, two stoner idiots that represent the worst version of drug culture, and everything they say is terrible.

Love and Hatred

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Interactions with Pagan Min's army does a good job of showing how evil they are.

Then there's the villains. There's Pagan Min and his three liutenants: Noore, Yuma and Paul. Noore is the weakest of the bunch, being the whiny curator of the ancient coliseum, but her backstory is interesting enough and her motivations make sense. Paul is an interesting character, a man that will talk with his wife and daughter about mundane "dad" stuff, while slicing a hostage's head off and feeding it to dogs. Yuma is a freaky bitch that likes to use psychological horror to scar her prisoners, and is just overall really, really scary.

Finally, there's Pagan Min. FC3's Vaas was lauded as an excellent villain, but people were upset that he didn't receive enough screen time, and was killed off halfway through. Min, however, is fantastic, a mixture of ego, violence, fashion, and delusion all rolled into one purple suit. His connection with Ajay is unique, and despite attempting to destroy him, he regularly calls Ajay just to have pleasant chats. He treats Ajay as a son, and talking with him is usually the highlight of the game. All of this is no doubt thanks to the always wonderful Troy Baker, who does a great job of bringing Min to life and making him seem evil and intriguing at the same time.


Not Far Enough

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Spiritual journeys will pit you against demons as you uncover Kyrat's past.

Far Cry 4 isn't a bad game. There's a lot to love about it. What it is, is a bad sequel, and a bad Far Cry title. One of my favorite things about the Far Cry series was how different each game was from it's predecessor. Far Cry was an ahead of it's time sci-fi 80's action flick, Far Cry 2 was a deadly serious gritty Africa simulator, and Far Cry 3 was a huge, open toybox letting you stick C4 on a pig for fun. Far Cry 4 is just Far Cry 3, tweaked and re-worked. Far Cry 4 would be a great game, probably one of the best modern shooters, if only Far Cry 3 didn't exist.

Like I said, it's not a bad game, but there are numerous bad elements to it. The story and characters are annoying, and the cutscenes unskippable. Hit-detection at long-ranges is faulty, which makes sniping a crapshoot. There are a variety of bugs, ranging from the hilarious to the annoying. The world of Kyrat is interesting, but annoying to explorer. There's an odd abundance of insta-fail stealth missions and terrible tailing missions a-la Assassin's Creed.

All of this aside, there is a great game in Far Cry 4. An incredibly open toybox waiting for you to explore and exploit it. It's just to bad that the great game is Far Cry 3.